If you were at primary school in the 80s

[isabellerossignol]

I've spent what seems like all morning printing off worksheets for my primary aged child. And I was suddenly struck by a vivid memory from primary school. Hand typed or handwritten worksheets that were printed on a machine, in the days before printers, with really poor quality paper and all the writing came out with a bluey/purple tinge.

I've had a Google and apparently it was called a Banda machine, and was used a lot in schools because it enabled relatively cheap printing. Does anyone else remember it?

The thing I remember most is that the printed sheets had a really strong, distinctive smell. If I could smell that now, I'd feel like I was 8 all over again.

Bringing back so many memories!!
Totally remember the smell of that printing machine!
Singing hymns , reading the words off acetate films on an overhead projector, with a teacher hurriedly changing the films at the next verse.
Those Public Information films, burned on the inside of my head! I will never ever walk on a railway line or go near a power station!!
SRA reading cards!!! Had totally forgotten them, and how much I loved them!!
TV in a cupboard, yup! And Look and Read- anyone remember the one about the Bayeaux tapestry?? And "Magic , magic E"??? And "I'm an apostrophe!"??
Also remember Singing Together, in particular a collection of folk music from around the world (distinctly remember singing "Kalinka my dear"!)
The only thing noone else has mentioned on this thread is one of my favourite things- picking the dried glue off the glue spreaders!!

SMP was 'schools maths project', nothing to do with Scotland.

SPMG - Scottish Primary Maths Group - supplied some English schools as well. I was a bit baffled by that when i moved south.

Another memory came to mind today was the change from getting lunch in plates and bowls on a normal tray to the plastic tray with compartments that lunch got put straight onto

I remember a story we listened to in assembly. It was either a radio broadcast or a cassette. It seemed to go on for months.

All I can recall is that it was about a journey (I remember this because we used to play 'the journey' game in the playground based on this).

I have a feeling it might have been about pilgrims - A Pilgrim's Journey or something similar.

sashh We had temporary classrooms - wooden huts, like portakabins. They were actually much cosier than being in the main school building. I had a teacher I really liked the year I was in one and I loved the feeling that my class were all shut away together, away from the rest of the school, especially in winter.

I just had a google and I think it might have been this we listened to. I'm guessing it was a cassette recording as it broadcast live in the 70s.

genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/f19e88841e8a4c538d2695b6cc3b7c4a

The Pilgrim's Progress

BBC Radio 3, 1 May 1977 17.45

Synopsis

by John Bunyan
A new production in quadraphonic sound with John Gielgud as Christian. The Pilgrim's Progress from this World to that which is to come: Delivered under the similitude of a Dream, wherein is discovered the Manner of his Setting Out, his Dangerous Journey, and Safe Arrival at the Desired Country.

Sounds a bit much for a primary school looking back. I'd be surprised if any of us listened properly or understood it.

I had that exact purse!@OvaHere

I don’t remember the smokiness at primary school. Maybe none of the teachers smoked, or maybe I was just oblivious as smoking was so common then?!

But I clearly remember the smoky staff room at in secondary school in the late 80s.
My Head of Year would put his hand up to stop you walking through his office door while he stubbed out his fag before beckoning you in. He only lit up in your presence if he was REALLY stressed or you were in massive amounts of trouble .

DS's Primary school had temporary huts which were built in the 60s, and they were only demolished a couple of years ago!

Apart from the ubiquitous class hamsters, we had a class stick insect one year!

I remember one fire drill the whole class refused to leave the classroom because the class teacher said we had to leave the class hamster behind. Thank god there wasn't a real fire.

We had a class guinea pig called Nibbles, and a boy in my year once smuggled his garter snake into school to frighten/impress people with. Poor Sid.

ineedaholidaynow

I went to three different primaries due to house moves.

1. RC, head had taught my dad and his brothers when they were younger
2. RC run by different nuns

But school 2 was a very 70s education. The village had 2 schools when I moved there, one only had 10 pupils, the iother was closer to new housing being built so all the kids (me included) went there, the other school closed not long after.

The school obviously got bigger very quickly so looking back I think we had a group of newlt qualified teachers.

One teacher experimented with giving us 'cards' with our tasks for the day, we could do them in any order and just go to her to check the work or if we didn't understand.

When everything was done we could play for the rest of the day, or read, or whatever.

Another taught us to sing in Welsh (no idea how that sounded with Yorkshire accents) and made us Welsh cakes on a traditional griddle.

We seemed to do a lot of singing while the teacher played piano.

We also had a 1/2 day trip to the local poly to be filmed using new technology.

Afgain looking back this was probably one of the teacher's old uni mates or possibly a boyfriend.

We would do something called 'Topic' which was usually decided by the teacher but I think sometimes we got to choose. It was basically a project so it might be on 'America' so we would look at maps, an on the globe, someone whose uncle had been to ther US would bing in a dollar coin and some souveneers. We'd make a little museum display and in and among learn history and geography.

Pelleas

I was in a couple in school number 2 and they were really nice, lots of light, radio speaker built into the wall, lots of room, loved them.

@ineedaholidaynow

We had a class stick insect at one point, and some giant African snails. I got to take the snails home one half term much to the delight (not) of my mum. I still remember the gross dried fish we had to feed them .

We had stick insects, we fed them privet hedge leaves, the teacher used to send us out down the road with scissors to cut them off people's hedges !!!

YYY To

Jelly bags and shoes! The bags you had to line with THE RIGHT ordinary carrier (NEVER Tammy girl because Tammy short for tampon) or your stuff fell out - or your Sanpro was on display! Much preferred the canvas satchel fashion - “decorated” in marker pen and tippex!

Time spent watching “kes” is NEVER wasted! Fabulous film.

@sassh ALL my schools had temp classrooms - boiling in summer freezing in winter!

The “how we used to live” episode I remember was the one set just before wwii when the teen girl of the family witnessed brown shirts beating up an old Jewish man. I hadn’t known until then that there were British fascists too. I remember asking my mum and dad and dad recalled being told of his dad intervening in a similar situation. Shocking

Tepid school milk in those mini bottles oh god yes! I must have been one of the few people GLAD when thatcher abolished this vile stuff. Made me think I didn’t like milk as a straight drink for YEARS turns out I just don’t like full fat, warm gross milk!

I could use a window pole now! My kitchen window is seriously awkwardly placed!

Can’t imagine schools getting away with that now my last high school still has them (I have friends with dc at that school now telling me it hasn’t changed a bit! Even the curtains are the same - and they were 60’s/70’s patterns colours then so must be at least 50 years old!!)

@noideaatallreally - we had “embroidery” so we weren’t just doing cross stitches we learned running stitch, back stitching, Star stitches and french knots etc wonderful stuff. I still do cross stitch occasionally now.

@ineedaholidaynow - my sisters best friend at primary school was killed being hit by a car when she was 10. So so sad still affects us all now and we’ve all (my siblings) absolutely HAMMERED road safety into our kids. Bro is a policeman now and finds it especially hard dealing with car accidents involving girls of a similar age.

You’re right, it’s not all singing together and jelly bags.

Yet if anything imo school entrances are FAR worse now as far as potential car accidents are concerned.

Also 2 of my schools were army schools and we didn’t just have fire drills we had bomb scares too (height of the troubles)

@Graphista

The Troubles....We had several hoax bomb scares at my London secondary school in the late 80s, that turned out to be school kids in a phone box round the corner claiming to be the IRA to get a day off school...

I was teaching in the 70s and 80s; the Banda always seemed to be out of fluid when I needed to use it. If you spilt any, it took the colour out of your shoes. I put a stencil on the Roneo machine in the secretary's office, and set it to make 10 copies. I hadn't realised that I'd put the stencil on backwards, and dialled 100... that was a lot of wasted paper.

The Troubles....We had several hoax bomb scares at my London secondary school in the late 80s, that turned out to be school kids in a phone box round the corner claiming to be the IRA to get a day off school...

At my N Ireland secondary school, fake bomb scares were so common we didn't even evacuate for them I think they evacuated once but traced it back to the payphone in the school locker bays, and after that they always assumed the same source. And in fairness they were right, because many a pupil boasted that they were going to ring in a bomb scare because they hasn't done their homework, although I'm not sure how many followed through. The school was an incredibly unlikely target, and difficult to access, so I'm guessing they felt fairly safe to ignore them.

I was also in primary school in the early 80s and remember just about everything mentioned here. Granny's Garden was the highlight of the week (one computer so each class had it for one session a week) I loved school! PE in vest and pants and big apparatus in the hall.

When I was teaching in the early 2000s I found a batch of dusty Look and Read videos and books in the back of a cupboard. We managed to fit them into the curriculum and the kids loved them 😀

I wonder if our young children will look back on their primary school days with such fondness?

I can remember visits to school assembly from the actual Green Cross Code man. (David Prowse lived along the road from the school).

I loved school milk, I remember in nursery we all had a symbol on our peg and another on a string that went round the bottle. Mine was a swan.

Looked up bbc education videos on YouTube and found Zigzag which was quite familiar.

Also remember learning to read with Robert Red Hat and Jennifer Yellow Hat.

Also, the big beige registers that one lucky person got to take to the office.

Prayers before lunch and at the end of the school day too.

I must have been one of the few people GLAD when thatcher abolished this vile stuff. Made me think I didn’t like milk as a straight drink for YEARS turns out I just don’t like full fat, warm gross milk!

Yes!! The crate stood for a few hours in the classroom then we had to drink up. I still remember the smell! Bleurgh. Thanks Thatcher, for that at least.

Fire alarm, windows closed.
Bomb alarm, windows open.

The Binka embroidery fabric with the big holes and extra big needles

I remember 'Come and Praise' well - there was the one that went 'The earth is yours oh God. You nourish it with rain', with extra emphasis on the shit. This being the mid 80s, we also sang 'Would you walk by on the other side, when someone called for AIDS'. The worst thing though, was the way we used to call people 'Deacon' as an insult. I'm glad we've moved on from that.

Ha! I still have Come and Praise for piano at work and use the occasional song from there in assembly still.
I did retire 'Join With Us' the first year I was there when o realised the cheeky y6 were singing...
Join with us to sing gods praises
For his love and for his care.
For the hap- penis he brings us....

Nope.

I remember the Banda machine and how sometimes the purple ink would come off your worksheet and onto your hand.
I had 6 primary schools (Army brat) and can’t recall many books etc as a result except the Ginn reading series- man I hated those books with a passion!
Some orange folder with flash cards for learning words. And wooden blocks divided into tens, hundreds and units.
Three of my schools had ‘temporary’ portacabin classrooms - no idea why all the schools were so full, did they not build new schools in the 80s?
Ages ago I went to a computer museum and they had bbc micro computers and I was dead impressed with myself that I could still remember how to program the turtle!!

I was doing supply a couple of years ago and we had a few hoax bomb threats. The first one they sent everyone home, I phoned my agency toi let them know and they had no procedure for what to do. Thankfully the school paid me.

FrenchFancie

If you download 'small basic' you can program a turtle, it's a virtual one on your screen bot the big perspex thing but still good for teaching coding skills.